From fake news to insults, the moral decadence of Algeria’s state media
All over the authoritarian world, state news agencies serve to reflect the mindset, policies, and official positions of their regimes. Algeria took that role of news agencies to a new low level. As it hit the bottom and continues to dig, Algeria’s state news agency APS moved from spreading propaganda and fake news to outright insults.
In response to news relayed by Algerian dissident journalist Abdou Semmar, APS wrote that he was “a Makhzen-Zionist dog in Paris.” With this heinous attack on a single journalist, APS enters history as the first news agency to treat as a dog an opponent of the regime.
The reason for the verbal attack was Semmar’s youtube videos in which he warns of the military regime’s plan to delay presidential elections to maintain its civilian puppet President Tebboune in power.
APS could have denied the report without uttering insults. News about delayed elections have already been evoked by Algerian politicians such as army henchman Abdelkader Bengrina, or head of the regime’s islamists Abderrazak Mokri.
Tebboune has nothing to offer to campaign for a second term. He has amassed fiascos at the economic, social, and diplomatic levels leaving Algeria on the verge of collapse.
If elections are delayed, this would trigger violent unrest in a country which has no more to offer its restive and disenchanted youth but more repression.
APS is thus an example of an Algerian media constellation in decadence wherein the numerous outlets are all serving as mouthpieces of a military regime that proved inefficiency in addressing Algeria’s pressing issues.
The news agency has shown a pathological fixation regarding Morocco fabricating fake news on a daily basis.
Blinded by its endemic hostility to Morocco’s territorial integrity, the Algerian regime’s mouthpiece has hit absurd levels in attributing false statements and positions to countries and global bodies.
In January, Cyprus exposed APS lies denying Algerian allegations of having issued arrest warrants against Moroccan officials.
In October 2021, the UN has denied as false reports by Algeria’s APS that Morocco “failed” to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
A month earlier, the Geneva-based Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) denounced the “complete fabrication” by APS of a news report, claiming that the UN Dispute Tribunal in Geneva had rejected a complaint from Algerian activists in a record time of 24 hours.
In response, OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville lashed out at the Algerian news agency’s “false information” in a fiery statement.
“The information contained in the article, which has been widely picked up by other media in Algeria and elsewhere, is a complete fabrication from start to finish,” he said.
